We didn’t speak for a few minutes, the sizzling of the pan and clanging of pots and bowls serving as the only noise. It wasn’t an uncomfortable silence, but I wasn’t one to do well with not speaking for long periods of time. I also, it seemed, wasn’t one to revel in a moment I had been dreaming of for a year.
“What gives?” I asked suddenly.
Hansen turned his head around, raising his brow in silent question.
“Well…” I continued, “…you don’t seem to show any interest in anyone. Then you corner me in the kitchen last week and kiss the shit out of me. Then inform me you don’t want me. Then this…” I waved my hands between us. After my mind caught up with my mouth, I mentally chastised myself. Could I not just revel in the moment of relative domestic bliss with the man I’d been pining over? No. Me and my stupid mouth had to question the why of it, potentially setting flames to it all.
Hansen’s face hardened and he turned his attention back to the stove, moving the pans from the heat. Then he rounded the counter and moved my stool so he was standing in front of me. His hands framed my face.
“Just ‘cause I didn’t show any interest in you doesn’t mean I wasn’t interested, Macy,” he said softly. “I was. Fascinated in fact, by this girl who seemed to radiate happiness and goodness. This girl didn’t belong in the life she’d chosen, she deserved something more, something better.” He searched my face. “So I waited for her to realize that. For her to see her kind heart and gentle soul would get trampled if she stayed. But I lost my restraint, my willpower, that night I saw you dancing like you didn’t have a care in the world, like your life was sunshine and rainbows.” His hand played with my short, cropped hair. “Been punishing myself for doing that, babe. For getting a taste of something, I shouldn’t have let myself have. Last night, watching you get thrown across the room like a fuckin’ rag doll,” his jaw hardened, “I decided I wasn’t waiting anymore. You gonna stick with this life, you’re going to do it belonging to me. I’ll make sure nothing tramples over you, ruins the goodness that’s endured,” he informed me firmly.
I blinked at him. This was all moving at the speed of light. I felt like I’d just won the emotional lottery. How could getting knocked out at a biker bar equate to getting everything you’d always wanted?
I swallowed. “It doesn’t bother you…” I started carefully, “…that I’ve been with…” I started to voice my hidden fear, needing to know now if the position I’d chosen in the club was going to make him think of me in that way forever.
He silenced me by pressing his hand to my lips, his eyes hardening. “Yeah, it bothers me,” he clipped tightly.
My heart fell.
“That I was pursuing some fucked up reasoning, and by doing that, all my brothers in the club got a taste of what I’ve always considered mine,” he continued. “Lost sleep over that fuckin’ shit. Almost lost my mind….” He paused, his hand moving from my lip to my jaw. “Do I think of you any differently? No babe. That shit was on me. You’ll always be the girl that radiates happiness and goodness, the one with no fuckin’ filter, and a brain that comes out with craziest of shit.” The hands at my jaw tightened. “My girl,” he finished.
Yep. Emotional lottery. In the billions.
“You told them that?” I deduced. “That’s why no one has so much as checked out my ass in the past week and a half?”
Hansen’s gaze turned blank. “Trust me, babe, even when I threaten them with death and dismemberment, they ain’t gonna stop checkin’ out that perky ass,” he stated flatly. His hand moved to trace my lip. “Moment I tasted the sweetness, realized it was better than I ever could have imagined, was the moment I knew no one else was tasting that shit again.”
I jolted. “So you scared them all off, even though you decided to push me away?” I said sharply. Even though his words were sweet, I couldn’t help but be irritated. He may have been trying to protect me from his big, bad, biker world, but that wasn’t his decision to make. I chose to be in this world. I wanted it. I was getting mighty sick of people deciding the only place I felt I belonged wasn’t right for me.
Hansen sighed. “I was trying to make sure I didn’t commit murder,” he stated. “‘Cause that’s what I would’ve done, had someone touched what I had finally tasted after a year, brother or not.”
I sucked in a breath. “If you felt this way, why in the heck did you push me away you big idiot?” I asked, smacking his shoulder. “You had to have known I’d be yours, the moment your mouth touched mine,” I said quieter, losing my bravado.
He did that thing, that thing where his eyes swam the depths of my soul. “Yeah babe, I knew. Which was why I pushed you away. If I didn’t claim you like I have now, I knew I’d never let you go, let you have the chance of a better life.”
My heart pounded in my chest. “And now?” I breathed.
“And now, I’m the one that’s going to give it to you,” he declared. “That answer your question?” he asked.
“I think that answers that question and any question I could have about anything anywhere in the universe… ever,” I said stupidly.
Hansen grinned. He kissed my head gently and went back to the grill.
My fantasy turned reality stayed firmly in place as he cooked us a delicious breakfast, which we ate on his patio. It then continued after we finished said breakfast and had sex on his breakfast bar. And sofa.
The whole day was spent discovering each other’s bodies, whispering stupid jokes—me, and laughing at stupid jokes—Hansen. Despite a nagging headache, which Hansen was very vigilant about, it was almost the best day in my life to date. Actually, it was the best day of my life to date. Period.